US double talk on Myanmar nukes

[unhappycamper]

US double talk on Myanmar nukes
By Bertil Lintner
Dec 16, 2010

BANGKOK - Is Myanmar truly trying to acquire a nuclear weapons capability and produce ballistic missiles with North Korean assistance, as alleged in a controversial June documentary made by the Norway-based Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) and aired by al-Jazeera, or is it all poppycock, as claimed in a November 12 report by United States-based ProPublica, an award-winning US investigative journalism outfit?

The DVB report was based on testimonies from Myanmar army defectors who had been scrutinized by Robert Kelley, a highly regarded former US weapons scientist and former United Nations weapons inspector. ProPublica, on the other hand, quoted an anonymous senior "American official" as saying that the US Central Intelligence Agency had reviewed Kelley's report "line by line and had rejected its findings".

Classified cables recently released by WikiLeaks from the US Embassy in Yangon, however, reveal a wide discrepancy between what US officials have said in public and the concerns they raise internally about Myanmar's nuclear ambitions. Judging by these leaked documents, it appears that ProPublica has fallen victim to manipulations by US officials who want to hide the true extent of the intelligence that US agencies have collected in order to enhance the political agenda of those who favor engagement over further isolation of Myanmar's military regime.

The US currently imposes economic and financial sanctions against the rights-abusing regime. Long before the Barack Obama administration launched its new Myanmar policy and began sending emissaries to talk with the generals, other US officials had tested a similar conciliatory tack. By any measure, those diplomatic efforts completely failed. In February 1994, US congressman Bill Richardson, who later served as the US's ambassador to the United Nations, paid a highly publicized visit to the country.

Accompanied by a New York Times correspondent, he met with pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi - then under house arrest - as well as then intelligence chief General Khin Nyunt. At the time, Richardson's visit was hailed in the press as a major "breakthrough" - although he himself was very cautious in his remarks. After a second visit to Myanmar in May 1995, Richardson stated at a press conference in Bangkok that his trip had been "unsuccessful, frustrating and disappointing".